Rip off the mask, tear down the walls. Show the world my beautiful, vulnerable self!

Posts tagged ‘appearance’

Letting My Inner Child Call the Shots Occasionally

This has been the week that wasn’t in so many ways. Plans went awry, electronics coughed up junk, and even my body repeatedly told me, in the unique vernacular of a toddler: “I don’t wanna!”.

In the past, I’d have been ranting and raving, struggling to catch up, filling my hours with half-assed efforts, and feeling lousy about everything I did. I don’t know if it’s age, experience, or finally acquiring a modicum of patience, but I take a less frantic approach to days and weeks that seem to take on a mind of their own.

In all fairness, I’m also better prepared for them since I have at least 2, and often 3 weeks of blog posts in the queue, and am usually ahead of schedule on projects for my clients. Maybe it’s simply holdouts from my days of working in an office where interruptions were the norm, and having something new and urgent tossed in my lap was commonplace. I learned to leave space in my schedule for the unexpected, and it’s a habit I see no reason to break, especially now that I work for myself.

Self-Care is More About Allowing Than Doing

Many people these days are talking about self-care. Suggestions are offered on how busy business owners should make time to keep their own engine primed, so to speak. The ideas cover the gamut from physical activity, to healthy eating, to taking breaks.

If you ask me, the best thing you can do is listen to your body. If it’s hungry, feed it; preferably something healthy and nutritious, but if it occasionally asks for a treat, by all means be willing to break your dietary restrictions temporarily to indulge it.

When you feel stiff or out of sorts, get up and move. I’ve recently rediscovered how much a simple, 20-minute walk in the morning can re-set your day and your metabolism. Even if you do nothing more than get up from your desk to visit the bathroom or fix a meal for the rest of the day, that 20 minutes of movement and fresh air get your day off on the right foot (pun intended).

Above all, if you feel tired, or out of sorts, don’t allow guilt to creep in and spoil the nap, meditation, or down time in front of the TV. You work hard, and you take care of yourself physically. Your mind needs breaks too.

Finding Our Level of Peak Performance

Science has proven that we are far more effective and efficient when we’re operating at the top of our game. That means sufficient rest, exercise, and nutrition. But Corporate America counters those arguments, telling us to get the job done no matter what. As a result, you have offices full of people who are functioning at 10% or less because they can’t seem to shake the latest cold or virus.

If they could stay home and get over it completely without harassment from employer and co-workers, everyone in the place would stay healthier. Think about what circulates in those office air conditioners. You wouldn’t eat food with crap like that in it. Why do you willingly breathe the air?

Yes, I’m frustrated I didn’t get as much done this week as I’d planned, nor get to the gym my usual 3 times. But I did walk every day but one, and got what must have been much-needed rest, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. As I no longer keep a lot of junk food in the house, I couldn’t eat badly if I’d tried. My idea of cheating on my diet these days is Trader Joe’s dark chocolate, Yasso 100-calorie yogurt bars, and Harvest lentil bean snacks.

Did you know it’s harder to happily binge on healthier snacks? I didn’t either until I sat with a bag of lentil snacks, ate a few, and put the bag away—because I’d satisfied the craving! The truth is, you set your mind to “healthier” and your body follows. When you overwork, eat crap, and otherwise tell your bod you don’t care, it craves love and attention in the form of things we mistakenly define as comfort food. In other words, grease, sugar, salt, and carbs.

Using Setbacks as a Reminder to Take a Step Back

Unfortunately, you get stuck in a self-perpetuating downward spiral in which your health suffers, and you accomplish less with more effort. Tell me something. Who does that on purpose?

I’ve learned when life offers setbacks, regardless of the source, the best thing to do is take a step back, relax, and give myself permission to get nothing accomplished if that’s what it takes to let the situation pass peacefully. Recognize I truly do have things under control and that there’s no meter running on the amount of stuff I’m supposed to get done in a given amount of time.

Even if there was, my normal work habits put me ahead of the game anyway. I suspect yours do too, but you may have gotten stuck in a self-destructive loop of overachieving. It may be as simple as working smarter, not harder, a lesson that took me a long time to master.

Working Smarter, Not Harder

Here are a few things I’ve put in place in the last few years which give me down time whenever I need it:

For clients I bill monthly, as soon as the work is done, I create the invoice and set up the email with delayed delivery. (Most email programs can do this).

Give myself more time than I know I need to complete a project to allow for delays both human and electronic.

Use the scheduling option on my blog and website to write my copy in advance.

Set up sharing on my website and blog to automatically publish to social media.

Pre-schedule a month’s worth of posts on sites other than my own.

Put all projects on Trello with due dates so I know exactly when things need to be completed.

Check Trello daily.

Put all regular daily activities on Google calendar with reminders.

Many of these might seem to you like no-brainers, but think of the stress you avoid when you don’t miss appointments; when you see what you have coming up, and how long you have to meet the deadline; when you see white space on your calendar you can use to accommodate the unexpected.

Leaving Space to Let Go

This week, I “lost” the better part of 2 days. I didn’t write any blog posts, or get work for clients done, or make progress on my marketing. Instead, I had time to take the breaks I needed, look honestly at what I’d done this week, and recognize it was more than I thought, and give some attention to my daughter when she needed to vent. All without stress or guilt!

I no longer beat myself up when plans go awry. Instead, I congratulate myself for having the space in my schedule to ride out the waves which bring production to a temporary standstill. In other words, I’ve found my balance.

Need Some Help Creating Space?

Are you feeling overwhelmed with too many things you have to do and not enough time? Did you know you don’t have to do it all? Would you like to take a task or two off your plate? Maybe it’s content creation, or perhaps it’s getting your books in order and creating a budget. If this sounds familiar and you’re ready to streamline your life and give your business and life space to grow and thrive, CONTACT ME and let’s talk!

Finding Gratitude in Everything

My gratitudes today are:

I am grateful for the pace I set myself. It varies with energy level, mood, and circumstances, and is rarely stress-driven any more.

I am grateful for my life outside the regular world.

I am grateful for choices I made which, on the surface may still seem ill-advised, but which have given me a far better quality of life.

I am grateful for options. Each day can be the same as the one before, but it can also be quite different. Either way, it’s my choice.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats, and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward

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Refusing to Remain a DUFF

I looked around at my current circle of friends at a recent dance gathering and realized a few things. First, I’ve migrated to a younger circle of women lately. I can’t always keep up with them, but there’s no shame in going at my own pace. Second, they’re all slender and look cute in their little dresses and skirts—and I’m not.

My first reaction was frustration with myself for allowing the weight to creep back on over the last few months. Not all of it, but enough that some clothes were tight again, and others looked pretty awful on me. Meanwhile, I see myself in cute little dresses but the cute little dresses don’t see themselves on me.

Protecting My Heart a Little Too Well

Too often in my life, I’ve been the fact chick amongst the skinny ones; the DUFF if you will. But in the past, though I may not have realized it, I used my weight as a defense mechanism. Guys wouldn’t approach the fat chick when the skinny ones were around. Nobody would get close to my heart if they were too disgusted to even try to get to know me, right?

As logic goes, it was effective but faulty. I’ve since learned I don’t need excess weight to guard my heart, if that’s what I want to do. My demeanor alone can manage that task effectively. So I set myself an aggressive but reasonable goal, put it on the spreadsheet I use to track my weight, and vowed to accept all suggestions for additional dance nights. My knees may scream for awhile, but they’ll thank me in the long run as I reduce the amount of pressure they endure while carrying more pounds than they’re designed for.

Our Inside Controls Our Outside

One of those cute, slim friends pointed out I’m more of a DFF than a DUFF as I’m not and never have been ugly. Sure, there were times I was less attractive, but it was my bearing, my anger, and the misery I held close like a security blanket which contributed to my unattractiveness. The attributes I was born with had nothing to do with it.

We all control our outward appearance from the inside more than we realize. I’ve seen people the world might consider unattractive looking absolutely breathtaking because of a glow which came from within. I’ve also seen strikingly beautiful women who made me turn my head away in distaste because they exuded such ugliness and filth from within, it completely negated whatever pretty packaging they were either born with or had enhanced.

Loving Who and Where We Are

I’ve learned when we’re truly enjoying what we’re doing, or our life in general, people see that far more than what our meat suit looks like. They’re drawn to the energy (or repelled as the case may be). The face, the hair, the eyes, how we look in clothes are secondary.

Still, we tend to focus and even fixate on those characteristics in ourselves. I’m as guilty as the next person in that regard. But our outside image is fixable to some degree. I’m not a proponent of drastic measures like plastic surgery, liposuction, fat freezing, or stomach stapling, but I’ve proven I can effect the desired changes in myself. I realize it’s not the case for everyone, and some may need help getting started.

I’ve also learned we’re not going to make positive changes until we love and accept ourselves as we are. That doesn’t mean we believe we’re perfect as we are or that we couldn’t stand a little improvement. But we believe we are lovable and beautiful in our own way as we are, and worth the effort to make improvements we believe we need to make. Without that self-love, no diet, surgery, or health plan will ever be successful. It may appear so to others from the outside looking in, but to the child inside ourselves, we’ll still find ourselves lacking and in need of improvement in order to be loved.

Starting from the Inside

What I’m saying is, we need to do the internal work first or we’re doomed to fail when trying to improve our outsides. How many people spend their lives yo-yo dieting, trying the latest craze only to be discouraged? Either they lose a lot of weight only to gain it back, or find it impossible to stick with a program long enough to see significant results.

I’ve been working out consistently for a year now. I’ve seen small changes, but nothing huge. At this point, I’m still seeing only small changes, like finally seeing a hint of my collar bone. But I see myself every day. If I looked at a photo from a year ago and compared it to today, I’d see a different story. Recently, I was complaining about the weight I’d put back on. My daughter looked at me in surprise. In her eyes, I’d lost weight because my face was thinner. It didn’t matter that I felt the tightness in my pants and blouses. She only saw the slimming in my face!

Others See Progress Where We May Not

Maybe what my daughter sees is more than a slightly less round visage. Maybe she’s seeing the improved self-love I get from committing to a weekly routine of self-improvement. It’s a funny thing about committing to yourself. First, you love yourself enough to make the commitment. Then you love yourself enough to turn the commitment into a habit. After awhile, you see the success you’ve had with one commitment and start making others. Pretty soon, whether you realize it or not, you have a brilliant internal glow because you care enough to treat yourself like someone you love fully and completely.

It only took me the better part of a lifetime to learn what some people find so obvious. I created a lot of terrible habits I had to break before I could set better ones. I’m sure I still have a barrel-full to break and re-set, but knowing I’m on the right track; knowing I can make commitments to myself and stick with them until they become habits is a gigantic milestone in the dark, twisty path that’s been my life up to this point.

Flipping the Switch

Are you self-sabotaging? Do you focus on hating things about yourself instead of loving the person you are deep inside? If so, try committing to loving yourself. Look yourself in the mirror every morning and tell the face in the mirror how much you love them. Then make a commitment to make a small change. Schedule it, reinforce it, and stick with it for a month or better until it becomes a habit. Even small changes raise our self-esteem. I learned the hard way; but our lessons stick better for a little pain in the learning process, don’t they?

Gratitude: The Most Powerful Tool in Our Toolbox

My gratitudes today are:

I am grateful I learned to commit to myself first and foremost.

I am grateful for friends who inspire and uplift me.

I am grateful for perspective which shows me improvements I hadn’t even noticed.

I am grateful for inspiration guiding me to write further and further ahead.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and advocate for cats. Sheri believes in the Laws , of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward